


Ad Meliora

by YrsAeternum



Series: Mirum Est Paternitas (The Surprise Paternity) [2]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Anxiety, Family, Family History, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, M/M, Meet the Family, Misunderstandings, Personal Growth, except like the kid meeting the family LOL, past tense though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:55:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28903737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YrsAeternum/pseuds/YrsAeternum
Summary: Ad Meliora: Towards Better Things-When they got to the apartment Sonny sent Peyton to go play in the guest room that was more or less his bedroom away from home now, waiting until he heard the door close to talk. "We ran into your mom at the store." He whisper yelled across the room to Rafael, who was leaned onto the kitchen counter on the phone. He waited for a beat before pulling his phone from his ear, lowering his voice.“I’ve heard!” Rafael whispered and Sonny stifled a laugh as he sat down on the couch.“Sonny is here, do you want me to put you on speaker so you can ask him yourself?” He said into the phone, huffing and meeting his partner’s amused expression with a sarcastic glare. “My mother would like to know if you have a secret family that you’ve been cheating on me with.”
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Series: Mirum Est Paternitas (The Surprise Paternity) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2093859
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	Ad Meliora

**Author's Note:**

> you don't *have* the read the first fic in this series from this one to make sense, but it might help!

“Daddy,” Peyton said, tugging on his dad’s shirt as they checked out at the bodega. “There’s a lady starin at us.”

Sonny finished swiping his credit card before turning to look at where Peyton was pointing towards the front entrance of the little store. Standing by the door, eyes trained on the two of them, was none other than Lucia- because of course, it was. It wasn’t completely surprising running into her, given that she had told Rafael she had gotten back from a sabbatical abroad a few days ago, and given that they were in the area where both she and Rafael lived. But that didn’t mean it was a welcome run in. 

Sonny steeled his glance and made it clear that he saw that she had seen him, forcing a tight smile before looking back down at Peyton, running a hand up and down his shoulder.

“It’s okay, maybe we just look like someone else she knows.” He said as they got their bags, Peyton sticking close to his side as they left and continued on their way to Rafael’s apartment. It had been almost a month since Frozen now, and they had made it a routine to try to spend two weekends a month together, both to get help Peyton bond with him and to get time to themselves in a way that wasn’t putting the five-year-old all the way on the back burner. 

When they got to the apartment Sonny sent Peyton to go play in the guest room that was more or less his bedroom away from home now, waiting until he heard the door close to talk. "We ran into your mom at the store." He whisper yelled across the room to Rafael, who was leaned onto the kitchen counter on the phone. He waited a beat before pulling his phone from his ear, lowering his voice. 

“I’ve heard!” Rafael whispered and Sonny stifled a laugh as he sat down on the couch.

“Sonny is here, do you want me to put you on speaker so you can ask him yourself?” He said into the phone, huffing as meeting his partner’s amused expression with a sarcastic glare. “My mother would like to know if you have a secret family that you’ve been cheating on me with.”

Sonny feigned shock and shook his head, Rafael putting a hand over his heart and mouthing _'oh thank God'_ playfully.

“Mami I found out he had a little boy a month ago, not that long after he found out himself. We were going to call after we spent last Saturday with Sonny’s family but that didn’t go too great so we wanted to spread meeting new people out more. Plus you’ve been abroad, it’s not like you could have-” He started, assumedly getting cut off by Lucia.

Laughing lightly at the conversation he could only hear one side of, Sonny bit the inside of his cheek at the reminder of how disastrous taking Peyton to Staten Island had been.

~~~  


_In hindsight having everyone under one roof the first time they met probably wasn’t a good idea, but Peyton talked excitedly about the trip and asked Sonny a million questions about his family the entire week leading up to the trip, so he tried to squash his reservations about it. And to begin with, Peyton seemed fine. He focused intently as Bella showed him old photos of Sonny, giggling at the one where he was missing both of his teeth._

_His mood seemed to shift as they were getting ready for dinner and Gina asked him if he had enjoyed the ferry ride over from Manhattan. The question earned her a frown paired with a wobbling lip that Sonny regrettably didn’t notice, his back turned to his son as he and Rafael were helping Tommy with getting everyone plates and silverware._

_“It was too loud, daddy do we gotta take the ferry to go back home?”_

_Sonny laughed, turning his head to glance at him over his shoulder. “I’m afraid so kiddo, unless you want to swim back,” He said lightly, Peyton only looking at him stone-faced. Sonny brought both of their plates over, setting Peyton’s down in front of him as he sat down, and furrowing his eyebrows when he saw that the five-year-old hadn’t moved his eyes from where Sonny had been standing when he was talking to him just a second ago._

_“Are you okay-” He started, cut off by his mother coming into the room. She was yelling excitedly about something, but whatever it was Sonny didn’t quite catch because the second the noise in the already loud dining room hit a crescendo, Peyton was screaming bloody murder, his hands over his ears. Sonny lurched back momentarily in surprise, taking a second to collect himself before reaching out to put a hand on his son’s leg, which he immediately kicked off. He scrambled down out of his chair then, crouching down on the ground in front of the Peyton._

_“I really want to help you here P, do you think you can let me take you into the living room where it can be quiet and just us?” He said and started to panic a little himself as he felt his sister’s and parent’s eyes burning into his skull._

_Peyton’s screaming had dissolved into what Sonny could only describe as panic-stricken sobbing, but he gave his dad a small nod and Sonny scooped him up, opting to go up the stairs to his old room where he could close the door instead of a few feet away and still under the watchful eyes of his family._

_It took thirty minutes to calm him down, and another fifteen with Rafael’s help to convince him that leaving to get on the ferry to go home wasn’t the equivalent of a death sentence, Dominick Sr digging out a pair of noise-canceling headphones from the den for them to try on the trip back. They helped, but Peyton still spent the entire ride in Sonny’s lap with his face in his neck, only looking up enough to check that Rafael was still next to them every few minutes._

_While Sonny knew that his family knew Peyton’s road to where he was now was a rough one, but trying to convey that to Peyton during his bedtime line of questioning that night made his chest tight._

_“Is your family mad at me? Can you tell them I’m sorry for being bad?”_

_Sonny sat down on the edge of his bed, running a hand gently through his hair._

_“They aren’t mad at you honey. They know you just got overwhelmed- you weren’t being bad.” He said, Peyton nodding and outstretching his arms out with grabby hands, his expression tired. And if Sonny spent the night in a child-sized race car bed, that was a few feet too small for him to sleep comfortably, well then he would deal with that back pain in the morning._

~~~

“No, not tonight- I just told you we’re trying not to overwhelm him,” Rafael said bitterly, sighing and falling silent again. After a few minutes, he said a parting goodbye with his tone a little more subdued, before hanging up and tossing his phone onto the counter.

Rafael sighed and flopped down on the couch, dropping his head back onto Sonny’s chest dramatically. “I was told to tell you that your son is cute, the fact that she would have appreciated knowing he existed sooner notwithstanding.” He said, looking up at him.

“She okay about not coming over tonight?” Sonny said, Rafael laughing lightly.

“Okay might be overzealous, but she’ll live. Shoot for next Friday night?” He tried, Sonny, nodding and leaning down to press a kiss to his still over dramatically melancholic husband’s head. “Good by me.” He said, running a hand through Rafael's hair and thinking quietly about how nice it felt to not be completely alone on this particular life journey.

The following Friday night rolled around quicker than Sonny had been expecting it to, and a nervous pit settled in his stomach at dinner that night. They were thirty minutes from Lucia coming over and Peyton was sitting at the table with his knees to his chest, having barely touched his food.

“Are you nervous about tonight P?

Sonny said and Peyton only shrugged, leaning forward to pick up his fork and take a minuscule bite of pasta. 

“Tell you what,” Rafael started, Peyton quirking an eyebrow and looking exactly like his father did when he did the same thing. “If you finish your dinner me and you can take a walk to the corner store before my mom gets here. That sound fun?”

Peyton gave him a tiny nod, Sonny putting aside his reservations about the effectiveness of bribing kids when it seemed to work, the five-year-old eating slowly, but perking up as soon as he was done and practically skipping out the door with Rafael to the store.

The buzzer rang just a few minutes after they left, Sonny sucking in his breath when he realized that it was probably Lucia. He buzzed her up and opened the door, smiling nervously.

“Raf just ran out to the corner store with Peyton to grab something but they should be back any minute,” Sonny said and ushered her into the apartment, Lucia returning his smile.

She turned, putting a hand on his arm as she slipped her shoes off. “I wanted to apologize if I scared your son the other day,” She started with a sigh. “I wanted to say something but I was just shocked, and worried that it was something more nefarious.”

“I think I’d need an apology more if you accused me of having an affair in the middle of Five Below, so we’re all good.” He said and hugged him, taking a small sigh of relief when she laughed lightly in unisoon with him.

The door creaked open a moment after they got settled in the living area, Peyton bouncing through the door ahead of Rafael, but stopping short when he saw that Sonny wasn’t the only person waiting for them. He looked at Lucia for a moment, eyebrows furrowed.

“Rafa’s mommy was the lady at the store?” Peyton said curiously as he leaned against the armchair Sonny was sitting in, looking between Rafael and Lucia. 

“Mhm, did you and Rafa get something for her?” He said and gestured towards the plastic bag in his hands with some sort of floral arrangment poking out of it, Peyton untwisting the handles of the from around his fingers, leaning forward to pass it to Lucia hesitantly. Out of the bag, she pulled a bouquet of yellow and orange flowers, Peyton moving from his spot glued to the side of his dad’s armchair to stand next to where she was sitting.

“Rafa buyed them but he let me pick the colors.” He said proudly, Lucia beaming.

“They’re beautiful cariño, thank you.” She said, reaching down into her own bag “And I have something for you too,” 

Peyton crawled up on the couch next to her, taking the paper off of the rectangular box she handed him carefully. Sonny made a mental note that Christmas morning was going to take about eight years to get through if that’s how Peyton opened presents, laughing to himself both at that thought and Peyton’s animated reaction to the zoo animals lego set Rafael’s mother had gotten him.

“Legos!” He shouted, bouncing on his bottom and looking at the box himself before turning it around to show Sonny and Rafael. “Thank you Rafa’s mommy.” He said and put the box down on the coffee table to throw his arms around Lucia. She beamed, hugging him back and looking over at Rafael over his shoulder with glassy eyes. “I’m glad you like them, your dad told me you liked animals.” She said, Peyton nodding and picking the box back up and opening as he launched into telling Lucia every detail of his last trip to the zoo at breakneck speed, enlisting Rafael and Sonny to help him with the building work.

An hour passed by briskly, and Sonny was glad that it was such a stark contrast from Staten Island. Peyton had pulled his coloring stuff out of his overnight bag, playing at Lucia’s feet and talking animatedly about the different ‘wildlife backgrouns’ he was making for his Legos.

“I’m just going to finish my coffee and I’ll be out of you boys' hair,” Lucia said as their conversation reached a lull, and before Sonny or Rafael could respond everyone's phone beeped at the same time.

“Amber Alert,” Rafael said, “And SVU requested.” Sonny said with a sigh as he pulled out his phone, shooting off a text to Olivia that he was on his way before shoving his phone in his pocket, crouching down in front of his son.

“Hey bud, I gotta go to work but I’ll see you in the morning when you wake up,” Sonny said. Peyton didn’t respond verbally but looked up for a moment from his toys and reached for a hug, Sonny squeezing him tight before kissing Rafael goodbye and waving to Lucia as he rushed out the door.  
\---  
Rafael glanced at the clock, talking to his mother and letting Peyton play for another twenty minutes before standing up, stretching briefly before looking down at the five-year-old.

“Tell my mommy goodnight P, you gotta go get ready for bed,” Rafael said, Peyton not looking up from his legos.

“I can’t go to bed, cause daddy’s not home.” He said casually, Rafael sighing.

Two times over the past few weeks Sonny had dropped a sleeping Peyton off in his guest room on his way to emergency SVU call-ins. But Rafael was quickly realizing this was the first time he was on his own in actually getting him to bed, not to mention for an audience of his mother, who was now drinking the last bit of her coffee as slowly as possible.

“He’ll be home when you wake up, you can put your pajamas on first or brush your teeth first but you have to go to bed.” Rafael tried, Peyton still not looking up- completely concentrated on his Lego bricks and not Rafael’s apparently asinine notion that he needed to go to sleep.

“Peyton,” He said a degree more seriously, "Your dad will be here in the morning, right now-

Peyton slammed one of his blocks down abruptly, snapping his head up and narrowing his eyes. “Stop talkin’, I don’t gotta listen to you!” 

Peyton looked like he regretted yelling a beat after the words left his mouth, taking a small step back and looking at the ground. Rafel sighed, trying to ignore the way his mother had trained her eyes on him, as if waiting to see how he would respond.

“I see that we are having some big feelings here but does your dad allow yelling?” He said as he crouched on the ground at the five-year-old's level. Peyton shook his head, sniffling as tears started to run down his face. “So let’s think of something else that would make you feel better. We can talk about it, we can go on a walk and elevator ride,” Rafael continued gently, Peyton interjecting before he could list any more ideas.

“Hug?” He interrupted and spoke quietly, diving into Rafael’s arm as soon as they were open, crying onto his shoulder. Rafael sighed and picked him up to sit back on the couch, Peyton not moving his arms from around his neck.

Rubbing his back in slow circles, Rafael lowered his head to speak softly into his ear. “I know it’s not fun when he has to leave like that,” He said, Peyton pulling back and wiping his face with his hand.

“I didn’ know him for so long and he jus’ went away again.” He said through sniffles, sitting up straighter and looking at Rafael doe-eyed.

Rafael sighed, pushing his hair out of where it was falling into his eyes and taking a tissue from the box that his mother must have stuck next to him on the couch when he wasn’t paying attention. He wiped Peyton’s face, speaking softly.

“It makes me sad too buddy but he's only away until you wake up,” He started. “And it makes me feel better to think about all the people he’s helping when he’s not here, like right now he’s helping a mommy find her daughter that got lost.” Rafael said, Peyton seeming to think on that as he leaned his head tired back onto Rafael’s shoulder. 

They stayed like that for a few minutes before Rafael got up and carried him down the hallway. He didn't meet eyes with his mother- worrying more than he thought he ought to at his age about what she thought of his ability to parent.

Peyton was relatively easy to get down having worked himself up to exhaustion, Rafael leaving his door a crack open so the light from the hallway could act as a makeshift night light before going back into the living room. For a split second, he thought his mother had left but realized she wasn’t where he left her on the couch because she was standing against the wall coming out from the hallway, pulling him into a hug the second he got close enough for her to.

“I’m so proud of you mijo,” She said into his shoulder, pulling away after a moment and cupping her face in one of her hands. 

Rafael hummed, now feeling a little cloudy eyed himself. Lucia left shortly after their little moment, but Rafael sat with the sentiment she had laid on him sitting up in bed and watching mind-numbing reality TV as he waited for Sonny to get back. He heard the front door creak open a little before midnight, followed by Peyton’s and then his own bedroom.

Sonny smiled tiredly, Rafael hoped that meant the Amber Alert hadn’t gone as horrible as it certainly could have gone.

“14 year old got mad at her mom and set a fake abduction scene up in her room before crawling out the window and trying to run away,” Sonny said quietly as he stripped off his work clothes, laughing dryly. “You think Peyton is ever gonna do that to us?”

Rafael bit his lip, the realization that Sonny was suggesting they would still be together when Peyton was a teenager not completely lost on him. “I don’t think you have to worry about him running away from home when he flips out because he has to go to bed without you here.”

“In front of your mom?” Sonny said, raising an eyebrow. 

“After I demonstrated I didn’t inherit my father’s authoritarian dictator from hell child-rearing gene she got all emotional. Glass half empty is half full too, I guess.” He said quietly. 

Sonny’s face fell a little, and when he crawled into bed he nuzzled a little closer into Rafael’s space than he normally did, putting an arm around him, running his hand up and down his shoulder. “I’m okay Sonny,” He started, giving him a self-assured smile. 

It was only a half-truth, but he was also too tired to get into the nitty-gritty details of what memories the evening had triggered, at least right now. But Sonny could read him and seemed to pick that up, unfurling himself from Rafael to grab the remote and click the TV off before turning back over. Rafael rolled over and slotted his head into the crook of his neck, finding peace in the way their chests rose and fell with their breathing against each other as he tried to doze off. Sleep didn't come as easily as he'd hoped it would have, grainy memories of his own childhood floating through his head. But within his silent musings about how his own father would have reacted to Rafael yelling at him, was the realization that he had truly grown beyond the person circumstance set him up to become. A realization that he wouldn't have had without Sonny, or Peyton. Sonny was already asleep, but he leaned up and looked at him for a quiet moment anyways- whispering a quiet _"I love you."_ before laying back down and falling asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> love these boys <3 come hang out with me on twitter tonight for live-tweeting @yrsaeternum! i live for comments and if you got ideas for this little universe i'm super open to them.


End file.
